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Sons of God 



AND 



Brothers of 
Christ 



Price, 25 Cents 



Sons of God 

AND 

Brothers of Christ 



/ 



BY 



JOHN HAMLIN DEWEY, M.D. 

AUTHOR OF 

' THE WAV, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE," " THE PATHWAY OF THE SPIRIT," 

"the OPEN DOOR, OR THE SECRET OF JESUS," "DAWNING DAY," 

" THE GENESIS AND EXODUS OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT," 

"the NEW TESTAMENT OCCULTISM," ETC. 



' For as many as are led by the Spirit 

of God, they are the Sons of God " 



NEW YORK "' 



THE J. H. DEWEY PUBLISHING CO. 
1896 

- K . 






.:&^Jl^ 



COP^IGHT, 1896, BY 
E. L. C. DEWEY /^ 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



SONS OF GOD AND BROTHERS OF 
CHRIST. 

For the Earnest Expectation of the Creat- 
ure Waiteth for the Manifestation of 
THE Sons of God. (Romans 8:19.) 

Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, 
which is in heaven. 

Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even 
Christ; and all ye are brethren. (Matt. 23 : 8, 9.) 

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven 
is perfect. (Matt. 5 : 48.) 

The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall 
worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh 
such to worship him. 

God is Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in 
spirit and in truth. (John 4 : 23, 24.) 

In the above significant utterances we have the 
basic teaching of the one supreme Master, the most 
divinely illumined Teacher our world has known. 
No higher authority in spiritual matters is either 
needed or possible to us. He spake not from the 
inductions of a speculative philosophy, but from the 
God-anointed vision of a Seer. He spake that which 



6 SONS OF GOD AND 

He knew and testified of that which He had seen. 
" He spake as one having authority, and not as the 
scribes/' It was the authority of a Hving experience. 
He appealed to no law or principle the truth of 
which He was not himself the practical demonstra- 
tion. He lived the Gospel He proclaimed, hence, 
*' his word was w^ith power." He was indeed " the 
sent of God," and '' he whom God hath sent speaketh 
the words of God." 

Here then, we have, in the supreme example and 
perfect teaching of the Master, a sure foundation 
and safe Leader. Let us give this basic teaching of 
the Great Master a few moments' earnest and careful 
consideration. If, as Jesus taught, God, as pure 
Spiritual Being, immanent and transcendent, is the 
supreme Reality, and we are His direct offspring, 
then we ourselves are deific beings, and have in- 
herent and potential within us the nature and attri- 
butes of God, our heavenly Father. Theoretically, 
in a sort of blind, non-vital way, this doctrine has 
been accepted by vast numbers of men, but how few 
have had any realizing sense of the stupendous pos- 
sibility it involves. 

If we are really the children of God, in the prac- 
tical sense here implied, two doors of transcendent 
possibility are open to us. First, we have of neces- 
sity the inherent capacity to know God in the true 
nature of His Being, to know Him as our Father; 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 7 

and to hold as decided conscious communion and 
fellowship with Him in this inborn and indestructible 
relationship, as we have to know and commune with 
one another as His children. What an exalted and 
exalting privilege and experience is thus open to us, 
and yet how few have been awakened to any vital 
sense of either its sublime possibility, or its unspeak- 
able value and importance. 

Second, we have by the same necessity, the inborn 
capacity to manifest the God-nature, which is noth- 
ing less than to achieve and assert our rightful deific 
supremacy of being, as Sons of God and Brothers of 
Christ. '' And God said. Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness; and let them have domin- 
ion." But the mass of mankind are not yet con- 
scious of God, much less of this deific nature and 
power latent and slumbering within them. How 
then shall they become thus conscious of God, and 
awakened to this sublime realization in practical 
experience of their own God-nature ? 

That we do not spontaneously see and know God, 
as we see and know one another, and so manifest 
the God-nature as we do the sense-nature, is because 
that nature is yet latent, and in a sense slumbering 
within us. Yet the God-nature within us connects 
us as directly and vitally with the Being and king- 
dom of God within, behind, and above the world, as 
docs the sense-nature with the world external to us. 



SONS OF GOD AND 



THE FACT OF GOD MAKES POSSIBLE THE KNOWLEDGE 
OF GOD. 

The possibility of the sense-consciousness and 
knowledge of external things, rests upon the fact of 
an outward world and of our organic relation there- 
to. In like manner the possibility of the God-con- 
sciousness, which is the knowledge of God and of 
our own God-nature as His offspring, rests upon the 
supreme fact of the Being and Kingdom of God, and 
of our organic and vital relation to them. Hence, 
as the sense-consciousness was awakened and es- 
tablished by the recognition of and communica^;ion 
with the outward world through the senses, so the 
God-consciousness must be awakened by the corre- 
sponding recognition of, and communication with 
the Being and kingdom of God through intuition — 
the spiritual sense of the inner man. 

In the individualization or birth and establish- 
ment of our self-conscious personal identity as 
spiritual beings, we have the same inborn capacity 
to enter into and hold communication with the Be- 
ing and kingdom of God within, through our inward 
and spiritual nature, that we have to enter into 
and hold communication with the outward world 
through our external and sense-nature. 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 



BY REVELATION ONLY, IN ANSWER TO PRAYER. 

It is, however, because the material world is ex- 
ternal to us, and, in the true sense beneath us, that 
we are spontaneously active toward it and seek to 
master and possess it. And it is because the Being 
and kingdom of God are spiritual, and in the 
true sense, within, behind, and above us, that we can- 
not as an individual identity thus act upon them, but 
must be acted upon by them, and can, therefore, 
know them only through revelation from within. 
For this reason the revelation is not spontaneous, 
but must be specially desired and sought for in the 
prayer of silence. It can come to us only through 
the receptive and listening attitude, not through the 
positive and aggressive, and never by intellectual 
analysis or study. Hence it is of necessity a matter 
of specially awakened desire which prompts to vol- 
untary seeking, and not, as with the senses, a spon- 
taneous and involuntary activity. 

As this direct and immediate revelation of God is 
necessary to the awakening of the God-nature in us, 
until we see and know Him as He is, we cannot, by 
any means, know and realize our own God-nature. 
We must certainly know the true nature of God as 
our Father, before we can realize and manifest that 
nature in ourselves, as His children. But, as we have 



lo SONS OF GOD AND 

seen, this knowledge comes only by revelation from 
within in response to our specific desire for it. 
Hence, true prayer — the prayer of silence — is the 
only door that opens the soul to the direct revelation 
of God, and brings thereby the realization of the 
God-nature in ourselves. 



THE FACT OF A SPIRITUAL NATURE IN US MAKES 
ALL DIVINE REALIZATION POSSIBLE TO US. 

We could not desire to know the nature of God 
and to be like Him, nor could He reveal Himself 
to us in His real nature as our Father, unless as 
His children that nature was inherent within 
us. Only the real nature of the Father in us could 
desire the touch of His Spirit, and consciously re- 
spond to it. Now the indisputable fact that men 
have this desire to know God, and to share in His 
nature and supremacy, is itself the demonstration 
that the God-nature is inherent within them, giving 
them the innate capacity to realize the full and com- 
plete fruition of this desire. '' Beloved, now are we 
the Sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we 
shall be: but we know that when he shall appear [is 
revealed to us], we shall be like him; for we shall 
see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope 
in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.'' 

What is needed, then, to bring this fruition, is to 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. n 

have our desire and attention centred in inward 
concentration upon God, for the revelation, in suffi- 
cient intensity to overrule and bring into stillness 
the sensuous activities, and maintain the receptive, 
listening, and expectant attitude in which only the 
revelation can be given or received. This consti- 
tutes the effective prayer of silence. 

This revelation being the most sublime and ex- 
alted knowledge and experience possible to man, 
it can be opened to him only in response to the 
supreme and all-absorbing desire of the heart for it. 
When this desire after God for His own sake be- 
comes thus all-absorbing, there will be no difficulty 
about the concentration of attention upon Him. It 
will indeed be impossible to keep the attention 
from Him. " Where thy treasure is there will thy 
heart be also," and where thy heart is centred, there 
will thy attention be correspondingly fastened. 
'' Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search 
for me with all your heart.'' 

Since, then, we cannot become conscious of nor 
manifest the deific quality of our own being until we 
know the real nature of God as our Father, and since 
nothing but the conscious touch of His Spirit in 
response to our supreme desire for it can give the 
revelation and awaken this consciousness and power, 
the seeking of this revelation should become the 
first and supreme object of our life. When this 



12 SONS OF GOD AND 

determination fully dominates the soul, the revela- 
tion and realization will not be long delayed. 



NO OBJECTIVE VISION OF GOD. 



fli 



In seeking this revelation or vision of God, how- 
ever, we must remember that '' God is Spirit,'' and 
so invisible and ubiquitous Being, an Omni-Holy 
Presence in which "" we live, move, and have our 
being." Hence this '' beatific vision " or vision of 
God, is not an objective vision as of some being or 
object external to us, or even a symbolic picture to 
the inner or psychic vision ; for God is not form to 
be objectively or externally seen, or symbolized by 
anything in the heavens above or earth beneath, or 
by anything the imagination can conceive. 

'' God is Spirit," said the Master, and, as such, is 
both immanent and transcendent Being, within, be- 
hind, and above all things — the inward life and over- 
ruling power and providence. This should empha- 
size in our mind the one supreme thing of incalcu- 
lable importance to every human soul, which is, that 
the awakening to the consciousness of our God-nat- 
ure by the quickening touch of the Father's Spirit, 
brings with it the realization of our deific supremacy 
of being in and over our physical organism, and 
over all oui sense relations to the world external to 
ourselves. 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 13 



REVEALED TO INTUITION. 

But it will be asked, If God is in no sense external 
to us, and cannot thus be perceived, how is a vision 
of or revelation from Him possible ? We answer, 
that just as man has objective perception or sense 
vision, the power to perceive the form and externals 
of things, so he has intuition, an interior spiritual 
perception or apprehension of the qualities which 
inhere in the nature of things. 

This intuition is spontaneously active in greater or 
less degree with all people, yet being unrecognized 
and uncultivated, as such, by the great majority, its 
activities become so mingled with the inductions 
from sense impressions as to become obscured and 
indistinct. Yet in spite of this, its action often be- 
comes too clear and incisive to the consciousness 
to be ignored, and then its authority rises above all 
power of sense impressions to quench. It then re- 
flects and expresses the truth in its separateness, 
and is thus the voice of God in the soul. 

Only through the awakened intuition can we 
have the revelation of God and know the truth 
of being. The true vision of God is thus a revela- 
tion to the intuitive perception of the (lualities or 
nature of His Being, rather than any form of ex- 
istence capable of being observed and studied. 



14 SONS OF GOD AND 



KNOWN IN REALIZATION. 

Intuition being a function of the spiritual nature 
and not of the sense mind, this apprehension of the 
quahties and nature of Divine Being from the reve- 
lation of God to the intuition, is not, strictly speaking, 
an intellectual apprehension. It is more an inward 
spiritual realization. The very desire to know God 
involves the desire to realize His nature wnthin us, 
as we can know Him only by and in this realization. 
Indeed the desire itself is the stirring of the God- 
nature within us calling for and responding to its 
own; and only as this desire for God and for con- 
scious identification with Him rises above the de- 
sires of self and sense, do we open ourselves to this 
emancipating revelation of God to our souls, giving 
not only the consciousness of God as our Father, 
but of our own deific nature as His children. 

The knowledge of God and His attributes as an 
abstract proposition to the intellect, is but a vain and 
empty speculation, having no vitalizing influence 
upon the life. But the knowledge of God through 
intuition, by direct revelation in response to the 
heart's supreme desire for it, is itself the vital appre- 
hension of the very nature of God, which gives the 
inward realization and controlling consciousness of 
our own God-nature. 




BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 15 

It will thus be seen that God in His real nature 
and Being cannot be found or realized through any 
degree of philosophical induction or metaphysical 
analysis, any more than love can thus be found and 
realized. The knowledge of God, like the knowledge 
of love, comes to the soul by revelation only, '' for 
God is Love." It is indeed the love of the Father 
penetrating the heart of His child, and the response 
of the heart of the child to the Father's love. '' We 
love himbecauseHe first loved us." It is the response 
of one conscious and loving being to another. This 
supreme knowledge must therefore be sought and 
found through the heart and by desire or prayer, 
rather than through the intellect by metaphysical 
analysis and philosophical induction and mastery. 

It will also be seen that the nature of God can 
be perceived and apprehended only through an 
interior and subjective realization within ourselves 
of what Divine Being is. Nothing short of this con- 
stitutes a true revelation. And it is because we are 
spiritual beings and children of God, and the sub- 
stance of our essential being is His nature in us, that 
we have the capacity for this supreme revelation in 
realization. Hence it is, we repeat, an inward revela- 
tion of the nature of God as vSupreme Being, to our 
own interior being, which gives us not only the con- 
sciousness of the Being of God as our Father, but 
awakens the God-consciousness in us, which, as we 



i6 SONS OF GOD AND 

have said, is the reaUzation of our own deific suprem- 
acy of being. 

IMMEDIATE REALIZATION. 

All that blinds us, or shuts out this higher deific 
consciousness now, is the dominance of the sense life 
and its consciousness, by which we are held in 
bondage to its limitations. And nothing but the 
supremacy of the heart's desire centred upon the 
things of the sense life, holds us in this bondage to 
the life of sense and the limitations of its conscious- 
ness. 

The awakening of a still deeper desire to know- 
God and the things of the Spirit of God, and to be 
identified with His kingdom as the supreme good 
(making these the real treasure of our hearts), will 
open us to the immediate revelation of the Being 
and kingdom of God, and bring the realization of 
His nature in ourselves. 

This realization will bring self and sense into com- 
plete and permanent subjection to the divine and im- 
personal ego, and the law^ of the Spirit in the personal 
life. 

How can this awakening revelation of God be 
made, and the transforming influence of His Spirit 
be felt or exerted in and upon our life, while our 
desires and attention are centred upon self and the 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 17 

things that minister to self, and not upon God for this 
revelation and the emancipating touch and trans- 
forming power of His Spirit ? The question is its 
own answer. '' They that are after the flesh do mind 
the things of the flesh; but they that are after the 
Spirit, the things of the vSpirit." 

THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE, 

" The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus/' 
said Paul, '' hath made me free from the law of sin 
and death. For what the law could not do, in that it 
was weak through the flesh, God sending his own 
Son [the true and loyal one] in the likeness of sin- 
ful flesh, and for sin, condemned [not the flesh, but] 
sin in the flesh: that the righteousness [require- 
ment] of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk 
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 

What was this emancipating law of the Spirit 
of life in Christ Jesus ? and what the law of 
sin and death to which the Apostle referred ? 
Surely it was love for God and for the pure and holy 
life in Him, that constituted the law of the Christ-life 
in Jesus. '' Now if any man have not the Spirit of 
Christ, he is none of his." The law of sin and death 
from which the Apostle was delivered, and from 
which all must be delivered 1)cfore they can live the 
true, masterful, and perfect life of a Son of God and 
2 



I 



i8 SONS OF GOD AND 

Brother of Christ, was love of self and of the things 
that minister to self. This is the law of the animal 
nature, or '' mind of the flesh,'' and right for the 
animal who has no higher nature, but fatal for man, 
whose higher nature allies him to God and makes 
possible to him the nobler, spiritual, and perfect life 
(morally and physically) of a Son of God. " For the 
mind of the flesh is death ; but the mind of the Spirit 
is life and peace : because the mind of the flesh is en- 
mity against God; for it is not subject to the law of 
God, neither indeed can it be : and they that are in the 
flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, 
but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in you. . . . But if the Spirit of him 
that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth [abid' 
eth] in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the 
dead shall quicken [transform and make perfect] 
also your mortal bodies through his spirit that 
dwelleth in you. So then, brethren, we are debtors, 
not to the flesh, to live after the flesh [the animal 
nature was designed to serve, not to rule in the 
human economy] : for if ye live after the flesh, ye 
must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the 
deeds of the body [bring the flesh into subjection 
to the Spirit] , ye shall live. For as many as are led 
by the Spirit of God, these are the Sons of God." 
(Romans, 8th Ch., New Version.) 



« 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 



^9 



OUR SPIRITUAL NATURE DEMANDS GOD. 

So it will be seen that the revelation of God, with 
its emancipating and transfiguring power, can 
come to us only in response to the supreme desire of 
our hearts for it, which is the desire of the spiritual 
nature that calls for the things of the Spirit, as 
against the animal nature, or mind of the flesh, 
which clings to and seeks the things of the sensuous 
life as its supreme good. 

We must set our hearts on God and the things of 
the Spirit of God as our supreme good, if we would 
have the kingdom of God opened within us and en- 
throned in its divine supremacy in our conscious 
life. The desires and demands of our spiritual 
nature must rise above those of the animal within 
us, and if we would cultivate the spiritual nature so 
as to deepen, strengthen, and intensify its desires 
and demands till they become supreme, we must 
turn our attention from the sensuous life to the 
things of the Spirit. '' For they that are after the 
flesh do mind [cling to] the things of the flesh; but 
they that are after the Spirit, the things of the 
SpiHt." 

THE NATURE AND FUNCTION OF PRAYER. 

The dominant desire of our heart focussed in a 
mental picture of the thing desired and longed for, 



20 SONS OF GOD AND 

is the only real prayer, and the prevailing desire 
that dominates our life is the prayer of our life, 
and this prayer is always practically answered. 
'' Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall 
find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For 
every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh 
findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be 
opened." This dominant desire or prayer of our life 
is what we are constantly sowing, w^hether it be to the 
flesh or to the Spirit, and we must inevitably reap 
what we sow. " Be not deceived : God is not mocked. 
Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. 
He that soweth to his own flesh, shall of the flesh reap 
corruption; and he that soweth to the Spirit shall of 
the Spirit reap life everlasting." '' For to be carnally 
minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life 
and peace." 

Since, then, we reap what we sow, and our real 
prayers are practically answered, and since our dom- 
inant desire constitutes our real prayer, it becomes 
us to see carefully to it that our prayer or supreme 
desire is centred upon that, which received, will be 
to our highest good and well-being. Are we really 
praying for the kingdom of God to come and His 
will to be done in our conscious lives as it is in 
heaven ? Or is the love and will of self the motive 
spring of all our prayers ? 

The dominance of the sensuous life over the 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 21 

spiritual, or of the animal nature or '' mind of the 
flesh/' over ''the mind of the Spirit," need not neces- 
sarily be manifest in the grosser sensual indulgence 
of the fleshly appetites and passions. There is a 
refined sensualism that rises to the highest plane of 
the poetic and a3sthetic culture of the personal ego, 
in which self-love is still the foundation spring of 
motive and inspiration. There is not only the 'Must 
of the flesh," but there is also '' the lust of the eyes 
and the pride of life, which are not of the Father 
but of the world." 



MIND OF THE SPIRIT VERSUS MIND OF THE FLESH. 

All have the mind of the Spirit, and all may, there- 
fore, with this mind of the Spirit, recognize and ad- 
mire the things of the Spirit — love, mercy, justice, 
truth, purity, and the spirit of the unself — as in- 
finitely above the things of flesh and sense, and with 
the spiritual mind really desire these things. Yet 
all have also the mind of the flesh, and with this mind 
will necessarily desire the things which minister to 
self and sense. 

If the desires of this sensuous mind rise above and 
dominate those of the spiritual mind, however much 
we may recognize, admire, appreciate and even 
desire the things of the Spirit, this dominance of 
self which would appropriate the gifts of the Spirit 



22 SONS OF GOD AND 

to personal ends, is what we really sow and reap, 
and the prayer that brings its answer in our life. 

We may even sufficiently recognize and appreciate 
the transcendent value and advantage of union with 
God and the life it gives, to actually desire and 
pray for them, and yet the subtle spirit of self be so 
insinuated within and behind this prayer as the 
spring of its motive, that our desire for the mastery 
which belongs to this higher life of the Spirit, the 
exaltation which it w^ould, if attained, bring to self, 
is really what we pray for. It is but the self-decep- 
tive prayer of the personal ego, seeking union with 
God not as an end, but a means to the end of per- 
sonal aggrandizement. It is of the spirit of the 
world in us, not of the kingdom of God. 

The deep spiritual insight of the inspired and 
beloved Apostle, enabled him to draw a clear-cut 
line of distinction at this critical point of experience 
wdiere so many fail through self-deception. '' Love 
not the world, neither the things that are in the 
world. [The things upon which our hearts are set 
as our chief good, are what we really love.] If any 
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in 
him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, 
and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not 
of the Father but is of the world. And the world 
passeth away, and the lusts thereof: but he that 
doeth the will of God abldeth forever.'' 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 23 



THE DOING OF GOD S WILL NOT AN ARBITRARY 
DEMAND BUT A BENEFICENT PRIVILEGE. 

A true and loyal child because of his love for the 
father or mother, will of his own free choice and 
volition make their desire for him the law of his life. 
His confidence also in the superior wisdom of their 
judgment over his, leads him to cheerfully and even 
gladly subordinate his judgment to theirs, knowing 
that they have his own best good in view. 

If, however, a child had reason to believe that his 
parents had not his best good in view (which he had 
a right to expect of them), but were using him to 
their own selfish ends and to his hurt, justice and 
truth would not demand the cheerful and glad sub- 
ordination of his will and judgment to theirs, simply 
because they were his parents, even though he 
might be obliged to submit to their arbitrary de- 
mands because he was in their power. There is 
quite as imperative a demand that the parent be 
loyal to the best interest of the child, which, if he has 
a true love for the child he will be, as that the child 
be loyal to the parent through filial love and con- 
fidence. 

When parental love is recognized by the child, a 
true love and confidence toward the parent will be 
awakened, which will spontaneously make the 



24 SONS OF GOD AND 

parental will and plan, so far as nnderstood, the 
supreme law of its life and action, even to the prompt 
and persistent denial and sacrifice of every personal 
desire which is seen to be contrary thereto. Cer- 
tainly the perfection of his ow^n character and life, 
and so the realization of his highest well-being, could 
only thus be secured. 

Applying this law and principle to the relation 
of man to God as child to Parent, in the recognition 
of the absolute wisdom and goodness of the Father, 
all arbitrariness disappears from the demand that the 
wull of God should become the actual law of the per- 
sonal and social life of man as the child of God, since 
the demand itself is based upon the spontaneous 
loyalty of the child-love in man for God as the 
Father, and his faith and trust in the Father's per- 
fect goodness and providence, and not upon the 
dread of any arbitrary enforcement of that will 
against his desire. 

THE DUALITY OF MAN A KEY TO THE PROBLEM. 

It is the spiritual nature in man which is the real 
child of God, not the animal or sense-nature, which 
is as truly the child of nature, or of the world spirit. 
The spiritual man is the man of the Father's nature, 
and is ever spontaneously loyal to that nature and 
cannot be otherwise, because this is the very law and 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 



25 



necessity of his nature, just as the animal nature is 
true and loyal to the spirit of the world, because 
this is its nature and the necessary expression of it. 
Both of these natures are in man ; the one dominates 
the personal ego which is thus ruled by the spirit of 
the world, the other dominates the impersonal ego 
which is ruled by the love of the Father. 

The animal nature is a necessity to the physical 
organism, and when held to its subordinate func- 
tions in the human economy, is of divine appoint- 
ment. But when allowed to dominate the personal 
life, the law of the animal nature, which is self-seek- 
ing and self-indulgence, or pleasure as an end, over- 
rules the law of the human nature, which, as the 
child of God, is duty and achievement as an end, 
and pleasure only in these. 

PERVERTED DESIRE CONSTITUTES LUST. 

The perversion of the normal life of man as the 
child of God, corrupts that life and brings it into 
subjection to the world spirit through lust, which is 
perverted desire, causing perverted activities of mind 
and body. On the plane of the fleshly appetites and 
propensities, this perversion produces the '* lust of 
the flesh," by the prostitution of these functions to 
the ends of animal indulgence. On the plane of the 
social life and its relations, it comes forth in covet- 



26 SONS OF GOD AND 

ousness or the '' lust of the eyes," the desire for pos- 
session to personal ends or the greed of gain for its 
own sake, still rooted in the spirit of self. On the 
plane of the individual career and achievement it is 
manifest in ''the pride of life," the egoism and vanity 
of personal distinction as something more and 
better than others, the desire for and love of worldly 
honor, position, and power, even to the sacrifice, if 
need be, of others' good. 

In all these we see the dominance of the spirit of 
self, or the personal ego ruled by the worldly spirit. 
It is the law of the animal nature dominating the 
human life to the perversion of its powers, and '' is 
not of the Father," nor of His Son (the impersonal 
ego) in us, '' but of the world," through the clinging 
of the desires of the dominant personal ego to the 
spirit and things of the world. '' If any man love 
the world, the love of the Father is not in him." '' No 
man can serve two masters." 

The recognition and love of God as the Father in- 
volves the corresponding recognition and love of 
man as brother. The realization of either is im- 
possible without the corresponding realization of the 
other. When this law and spirit, which is of the 
Father, rules, there will be no desire for distinction, 
possession, or indulgence which cannot be shared 
by all to mutual advantage and happiness. 

All the evils that afflict mankind are '' the corrup- 



« 




BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 27 

tions that are in the world through lust/' born of the 
dominant selfish spirit of the personal ego. Hence 
when the impersonal ego supplants the personal 
ego, or the spirit of love and service, which is the 
spirit of brotherhood, supplants this spirit of self, 
every evil in the world will disappear forever; and 
the kingdom of heaven, or of harmony and love, in 
all their fulness of blessing, will be enthroned in 
human life and society on earth, in the full '' mani- 
festation of the Sons of God.'' 



THE HUMAN BODY A TEMPLE OF DIVINITY. 

The physical organism w^as a necessity to the 
individualization, through embodiment, of the 
human soul as a spiritual being and child of God, 
and is designed to be a complete organic instrument 
for the external manifestation and expression of the 
inherent deific powers of the soul. When it is used 
only to the ends of these higher activities, it will be 
such an instrument, and will perfectly respond to 
every demand made upon it by the soul, in the full 
realization of its deific nature and powers. But 
when yielded up to the demands of the animal, in 
self-indulgence, it becomes utterly unfitted as the 
organic instrument of these high functions. 

We have said also that the animal nature was a 
necessity to this physical organism, and when held 



28 SONS OF GOD AND 

to its subordinate function in the human economy 
(as servant, not master), was of divine appoint- 
ment. The law of the animal life is pleasure as an 
end, and this for the animal is found mostly in 
physical sensation, and results in the unrestrained 
indulgence of his animal impulses and propensities, 
fear being the only restraining influence over him. 
This is right for the animal and in no way preju- 
dicial to his health and well-being; while in man it is 
destructive to both. 

The organism of the animal is constructed in 
reference to this law as this is the only source of his 
enjoyment and delight. It is the reverse with man; 
his physical organism is constructed with direct and 
special reference to the higher activities of his mental 
and spiritual powers, the animal functions in his 
physical economy to be subordinated to these 
higher activities, their normal action being thus 
made subservient to this end. 

The strictly animal functions in man are a neces- 
sity to the preservation of the physical organism 
as an instrument for the use of the higher functions 
and activities of the soul, and to the perpetuation of 
the race. When indulged or exercised only to these 
ends, they contribute to his highest good, as the 
energy which would otherwise be wasted in unneces- 
sary animal indulgence is conserved and expended 
on the higher plane of the nobler human activities, 



I' 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 



29 



to the development and perfection of both soul and 
body. But let the animal dominate the human, and 
the physical organism thus be made the instrument 
of animal indulgence as an end, or for its own sake, 
the health of the body becomes thereby impaired 
and often utterly wrecked; and the soul de- 
prived of its normal conditions for the bringing 
forth and activity of its nobler powers. Even if the 
grosser indulgences or lusts of the flesh be, from any 
motive, restrained, yet this law of the animal nature, 
which is self-seeking and self-indulgence, or pleas- 
ure as an end, be still allowed to dominate the per- 
sonal life on its higher planes of activity, it will, as 
we have seen, pervert and corrupt the entire life to 
the ends and spirit of self. 

SUBORDINATION, NOT DESTRUCTION OF THE ANIMAL 
NATURE IN MAN. 

It is not, then, the destruction of the animal nature 
and functions in man, but its subordination to the 
human under the law of the Spirit in the life, that is 
needed for the perfection of that life. The personal 
life must be emancipated and redeemed " from the 
corruptions that are in the world through lust," 
whether it be *' the lust of the flesh, the lust of the 
eyes, or the pride of life, which are not of the Father, 
but of the world.'* This is the salvation proposed 
and promised in the Christ-gospel. 



30 



SONS OF GOD AND 



The spirit of self generated from the dominance 
of the animal nature in the sense life, which Paul 
calls '' the mind of the flesh/' and which, ruling in 
man, he calls '' the law^ of sin and death," must be 
overcome and rooted out before man can live his 
true life in '' the manifestation of the Sons of God." 

^^ MARK OF THE BEAST." 

This spirit of self is the real serpent nature re- 
ferred to in the symbolic story of Eden as more 
subtle than all the beasts of the field which the Lord 
God had made, because it was generated from the 
lifting up and conjunction of the animal with the 
human, by which it took on a subtlety from 
contact with human intelligence unknown to the 
animal world. It is this subtle, self-deceiving, self- 
seeking, and lying spirit of the personal ego with 
the animal impulses lurking within and behind it, 
w^hich is the only Satan and adversary of souls. This 
is the '' old serpent," '' dragon," '' devil," '' tempter," 
and ^' roaring lion seeking whom he may de- 
vour." It was the only devil in the temptation 
of Jesus in the wilderness, and the only devil re- 
ferred to by Him as '' the prince of this world " and 
'^ the father of lies." '' Ye are of your father the 
devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do: he was 
a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in 
the truth, because there is no truth in him. When 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 



31 



he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a 
liar and the father of it.'' (Jno. 8 : 44.) 

Under this subtle, pei verting, lust-producing 
spirit of self, this '' law of sin and death '' enthroned 
in '' the mind of the flesh,'' the personal ego forever 
stands convicted. Nothing, therefore, but the utter 
laying down of self will, in the supreme desire and 
sincere seeking to know and do only the Father's 
will, in the loving and loyal spirit of a true child, 
can open us to and unite us consciously with the 
Spirit and life of the Father, by w hich we are lifted 
out of self into the divine supremacy and perfection 
of our being in Flim. 

This supreme desire to forsake the life of self and 
sin for conscious union and fellowship with the 
Father in the perfect life of the unself, is the true and 
saving prayer which opens heaven unto us, and 
lets its transmuting and transfiguring Spirit as an 
abiding presence and power, into and upon our life, 
as it did to the Master at His baptism at Jordan, and 
to His Apostles at Pentecost. It is what the great 
Mystic, Wm. Law, called '' The Spirit of Prayer, by 
which Ave rise out of the fianities of time into the 
riches of eternity," or out of the emptiness of the un- 
satisfying life of sense and self, into the sublime 
heritage of the Sons and Daughters of God, P)rothers 
and Sisters of Christ, the true life of loyal service and 
divine achievement. 



32 SONS OF GOD AND 



THE FINAL AND SUPREME TEMPTATION. 

After the full revelation of the higher spiritual 
life of divine sonship and supremacy has broken in 
undimmed splendor upon the soul as its own, the 
final victory over self is yet, in the power of the 
Spirit, to be won. Even on these sublime heights 
of spiritual vision, revelation, and experience, the 
subtle spirit of self in the personal ego will rise up 
seeking to share this glory and subordinate it to the 
ends of the personal life. This is exactly what oc- 
curred to Jesus in His experience on the mount of 
temptation. 

If this was true of the Master, no other soul 
seeking the higher life need expect to escape it. 
This is indeed where many w^ho had reached the 
open vision of the Spirit have fallen. They have 
yielded to the great temptation of attempting to 
appropriate the gifts and power of the Spirit to 
personal ends, the ends of personal aggrandisement. 
The historic pathway over which aspiring souls 
have climbed the mountain heights of spiritual reali- 
zation is strewn with the wrecks of blasted lives 
who fell under this great temptation. 

Let every earnest seeker heed the lesson, and see 
to it that through self-deception he does not fail to 
reach the height of divine revelation and the open 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 33 

spiritual vision, and that having reached that mo- 
mentous crisis in which the final and decisive conflict 
and struggle between the subtle spirit of self, and the 
divine unself, is to be entered, let him keep the ex- 
ample before him of the great Master who in the 
same crisis, in the power of the Spirit won the 
final and permanent victory through His unflinch- 
ing fidelity to the unself, in supreme devotion to the 
Father's will. 



THE SUPREME ENCOURAGEMENT. 

Finally, let us all remember, that since the sub- 
lime contest and complete victory of the great Cap- 
tain of our salvation, we have not only the advantage 
of His example and instruction, but the mighty 
help of His living, perpetual, spiritual ministry, 
promised and given to all who shall earnestly 
seek to follow His teaching and example. Having 
been '' tempted in all points like as we are," and in 
every step gained the victory, '* he is able to succor " 
and give all needed aid to '' them that are tempted," 
and this promise of help and succor stands as a 
perpetual and unfailing promise unto all who seek 
it. '' Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? 
shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or 
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? . . . 
Nay, in all these things we are more than con- 
3 



34 



SONS OF GOD AND 



querors through [the help of] Him that loved us. 
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor liEe, 
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to sepa- 
rate us from the love of God, which is in Christ 
Jesus our Lord/' (Romans 8 : 35, 39.) 

We can descend to no depth of sin and shame, nor 
ascend to any height of attainment wdiere we may 
not have, when desired, the helping hand and loving 
sym.pathy and friendship of our divine Brother and 
ascended Lord. '' God hath made that same Jesus 
whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ,'' by 
which He is spiritually enthroned in a perpetual and 
perfect saving ministry to men, leading and direct- 
ing a mighty host who are one with Him in this 
blessed unfailing ministry of heaven. " Are they not 
all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them 
who shall be heirs of salvation ? '' 

The revealing and illuminating Spirit of the 
Father from within the soul, and the helping Christ 
ministry of heaven from without the soul, are seek- 
ing us with infinitely more solicitude than we are 
seeking God, and are ever ready, through our per- 
sonal co-operation with them, to help at once and 
completely every truly seeking soul, to the full frui- 
tion of its desire God-ward. But this desire must 
be absolutely centred on God, trustingly accepting 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 35 

whatever is sent of God : for it is to bring men to the 
Father that the Christ ministry is given. 

Our heavenly Father is more wilHng and ready 
to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, than 
we are to give good gifts to our children. This is 
the unqualified assurance of the Master, who had 
himself proved its truth in practical experience. But 
He everywhere emphasized this gift of the Father, as 
the one '' pearl of great price " for which a man must 
sell, or yield all that he hath to obtain. While the 
heart is centred on anything less, it has no room for 
this most precious gift. 

THE SUPREME POSSESSION. 

The Christ-gospel w^as the promised possession 
of the kingdom of God, or the opening of that king- 
dom in our conscious life now and here. His em- 
phasis was, therefore, to make this possession the 
first object and aim of our life effort, and be anxious 
for nothing else. Be not anxious even about the 
necessary things of the physical life, '' For your 
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all 
these things. But seek ye first his kingdom and his 
righteousness, and all these things shall be added 
unto you.'' 

In seeking the emancipated life of the Spirit in 
union and fellowship with God, we should not even 



2,6 SONS OF GOD AND 

think of the spiritual gifts that come to us as the 
result of that life. We must seek the life of union 
and fellowship with God for its own sake, in which 
His will and purpose for us as His children is the 
perfect law, and our supreme good. This is the only 
true life of a child of God. 

If while seeking that life we emphasize in our 
thought the spiritual gifts w^ith which we are 
to be endowed for service, we cannot help identify- 
ing them in thought with our personal activities in 
the outward life, and this appeals to the personal ego 
and tends to keep active the spirit of self. Until we 
come to know God and the fulness of His purpose 
in our life, all other considerations should, while 
seeking these, be ruled out of our thought. With 
the revelation of God and His will concerning us — 
w^hich the seeking in this attitude if persisted in will 
bring — will come also the gifts and the knowledge 
of His will and of our real service in them. 

The promised gifts of the Spirit are unquestion- 
ably for all who enter into the full glory of the 
spiritual life, and will come to each in due time; 
but these are only incidental to that life, not its 
substance or its glory. The real glory and gran- 
deur consist in our conscious oneness with God 
and the knowledge of His nature as our Father, 
and the consequent realization of His nature and 
quenchless love in ourselves as His children. In 



I ..„„.. „ „„„ „ 
this realization we are made partakers of His good- 
ness and sharers of His wisdom and the power which 
these confer, being henceforth directly taught of 
Him through inward illumination and perpetual 
revelation. " It is written in the prophets, And they 
shall be all taught of God." (John 6 : 45.) 



ACHIEVEMENT, NOT ATTAINMENT, THE END. 

When this conscious life in God is fully entered 
upon, all struggle for attainment and acquisition is 
at an end. In conscious oneness and fellowship with 
the Father, all anxiety and effort in our own 
strength ceases in the realization that all that the 
Father hath is ours, as a free gift to His children, 
to the full extent of our ever unfolding capacity to 
receive and use, and becomes practically ours by the 
using. 

It is only when this point is reached that the true 
life of achievement and ministry begins. As the 
desire and struggle for acquisition and attainment 
finally cease, these henceforth are replaced by 
achievement and service. The truly emancipated 
Sons and Daughters of God go forth not to be 
ministered unto but to minister. From that time 
they become co-workers with the Father not only in 
the development of their own sublime career and 
destiny, but in bringing to fruition and perfection 



38 SONS OF GOD AND 

the potential glories and possibilities of His crea- 
tion, or so much of it as the full circle of their 
ever expanding sphere of relationship shall connect 
them with. 

THE PRAYER OF SILE^XE. 

The prayer of silence in which alone the full reve- 
lation of God can come, through which we arc 
enabled to enter into this transcendent realization of 
being, is something more than outward stillness and 
indefinite passivity in the silence. It means the ab- 
solute stilling of every activity and consideration 
of self, with the heart centred upon God in an all- 
absorbing desire for the realization of Himself and 
His will, and an unflinching determination, with 
His help, to do that will and that only. 

This perfect and effective prayer of silence may 
at first seem a most difficult thing to attain, and 
many may think it useless for them to attempt it. 
But let no one be disheartened at the seeming 
difficulty. It is more in the seeming than reality, 
and is based upon a misapprehension of the law 
involved. 

Let it be remembered that this very mental atti- 
tude and act is the simple and spontaneous expres- 
sion of the spiritual nature and mind of the Spirit 
which are in every man. Man as man and child of 
God would be impossible without a spiritual nature 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 



39 



and its mind. It is these which Hft him above the 
brute and make him man. They are the very sub- 
stance and groundwork of his essential being. All 
that hinders the normal expression of them in the 
personal life of any man, is the dominance of the de- 
sires and mind of the flesh. All that is needed, then, 
to remove this hindrance and overcome the diffi- 
culty, is to strengthen, deepen, and intensify the 
desires and demands of the spiritual mind (which 
are for God and the things of the Spirit), until they 
rise above and subdue those of the mind of the flesh, 
and bring them into subjection to the law of the 
Spirit, denying them indulgence from the start. 
" If any man will come after me let him deny him- 
self, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." 
'^ If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the 
body ye shall live. For as many as are led by the 
Spirit of God they are the Sons of God." " The 
mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit 
is life and peace." 

NOT DIFFICULT WHEN REALLY DESIRED. 

This change from the dominance of the mind of 
the flesh to that of the mind of the Spirit, is readily 
effected if one really desires it. To lessen and sub- 
due the desires of the flesh, or the desires of the 
mind of the flesh in the perverted activities on the 



40 SONS OF GOD AND 

higher planes of the sensuous hfe, and at the same 
time cultivate, strengthen, and intensify the mind 
of the Spirit in its nobler demands and activities, we 
must turn our attention from the things of the fleshly 
and sensuous life, to those of the spiritual life. '* For 
they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the 
flesh ; but they that are after the Spirit the things of 
the Spirit." 

The continual indulgence of '' the lust of the 
flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," or 
the perverted activities of the sensuous life which 
constitutes '' the mind of the flesh," but strengthen 
and confirm them as a controlling habit of life. This 
necessarily renders both mind and body unfit instru- 
ments for the expression of the spiritual nature and 
the mind of the Spirit. And to dw^ell in thought 
upon the ephemeral, exciting, and abnormal pleas- 
ures of these destructive indulgences, but strength- 
ens and intensifies the abnormal desire for them. 

The practice of self-denial and diversion of atten- 
tion from the things and transitory pleasures of 
sense, by centring it upon God and the things of the 
Spirit, until the habit of indulgence is broken, will 
destroy the desire for and pleasure in them. These 
will then be replaced by the normal desires of the 
spiritual man, and the higher and enduring joy and 
gladness of spiritual freedom and supremacy in a 
life of divine and heavenly communion and fellow- 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 41 

ship, to which this very self-denial and changed 
attitude open us. 

The cultivation and enjoyment of this higher life 
of spiritual experience and heavenly inspiration is 
open and possible to all, in greater or less degree, 
even before the desires and mind of the flesh are 
subdued and the lusts thereof rooted out. It should, 
therefore, be entered upon at once, though the de- 
nied fleshly desires and the seducing enticements of 
the sensuous life upon which w^e are turning our 
backs, are clamoring through the recurring power 
of habit with almost resistless appeal for our atten- 
tion and indulgence. Divine and Omnipotent help 
is ours for the asking. 

But there must, at the very start, be the sincere 
desire and unflinching determination to put forever 
behind us the old life and enter permanently upon 
the new. In the New Testament language, '' Put 
ofif the old man and put on the new." This desire 
must be aroused and determination made as the very 
first step, and is the one thing of supreme im- 
portance. This step taken, the battle is half won. 
Until it is decidedly taken there will be continual 
failure. 

As a specific means of strengthening our faith and 
intensifying desire for the nobler life of the Spirit, 
aside from prayer itself, there is nothing so inspir- 
ing and specially helpful as the sympathetic and 



42 SONS OF GOD AND 

prayerful study of the life and words of the Master 
and His inspired Apostles, dwelling especially upon 
the wondrous promises of Him who was indeed '* the 
sent of God," and who therefore '' spake the words 
of God." The inspired Peter refers to them as 
'* exceeding great and precious promises, that by 
these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, 
having [through the inspiration of their encourage- 
ment] escaped the corruption that is in the world 
through lust." And again as a '' sure word of 
prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed 
as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the 
day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." 
(2 Pet. I : 4 and 19.) 

This individual effort is greatly helped and re- 
sults hastened by the union of two or more in sea- 
sons of retirement together for little Pentecostal 
groups in silent meditation and prayer and mutual 
encouragement in the work, '' not forsaking the 
assembling of ourselves together " under the Christ 
promise, that '' where two of you shall agree on 
earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall 
be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. 
For where two or three are gathered together in 
my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 
19 : 19.) "^ 

* For instruction in spiritual gatherings or inspirational meet- 
ings, see I Cor. 15th chapter, and '' The Master's Perfect Way," 
by the author. 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 43 



ABSOLUTELY A MATTER OF PERSONAL CHOICE AND 
VOLITION. 

The putting off of the old man and putting on the 
new, is wholly a matter of our own desire and de- 
termination, or choice and volition. Every man has 
both the sense-nature, and the spiritual nature from 
which come ''the mind of the flesh/' and the ''mind 
of the Spirit.'' The one connects us with the sense 
world, and the spirit of the world flows into and 
possesses us through the exercise of the mind of 
the flesh, and the indulgence of its lusts. The other 
connects us with God and the life of the heavens, 
and the Spirit and life of God and the heavens flow 
into us through the exercise of the mind of the 
Spirit. The choice lies with us, which shall domi- 
nate, and permanently become the ruling law of our 
life. 

On the one hand, the dominance of the mind of 
the flesh over that of the Spirit perverts and renders 
abnormal all the functions and activities of the sense 
life into the lust's thereof, and shuts out the inspira- 
tion and fellowship of the divine and heavenly from 
the personal consciousness. On the other, the dom- 
inance of tlie mind of the Spirit does not destroy 
any of the true functions of the sense life, but re- 
deems them from all perverted activities and the 



44 SONS OF GOD AND 

lusts thereof, and holds them to their subordinate 
position and legitimate activity in a normal and 
perfect life. " This I say then," said the great 
Apostle, ''walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil 
the lusts of the flesh," '' For sin shall not have do- 
minion over you." 



THE ALL-IMPORTANT HABIT. 

Having, after due consideration, taken the first 
decided step of choice and unflinching determina- 
tion to live the life of a true Son of God and Brother 
of Christ, the second and equally important and im- 
perative step is to institute at once the practice (and 
make of it a habit) of daily prayer and meditation, 
taking for meditation the prophetic words and 
promises of inspired teaching, as aids to the opening 
of our minds and hearts to the immediate inspira- 
tion and help of the Divine in our devotions. The 
inspired writings of all peoples contain these, but 
the best and most directly helpful are found in our 
own New Testament, especially the incomparable 
parables and authoritative promises of the Master. 

The very desire and determination of our hearts 
and minds to seek conscious union and fellowship 
with the Father, when once adopted as a permanent 
choice, becomes, if sacredly held and cherished as 
our supreme good, the constant and unceasing 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 45 

prayer oi our life which opens us to the direct in- 
fluence of the Father^s Spirit and the specific help 
of His estabHshed and ever active heavenly minis- 
try. But in special daily seasons of retirement, how- 
ever brief these must be, in which for the time all 
other activities are shut out, we intensify thereby 
our spiritual life, and both emphasize our position 
in it, and strengthen our hold upon it. 

Nothing will so quickly and effectually destroy 
the power of temptation, quench the fire of lust, and 
hush the clamoring demands of the sensuous life, 
which through the recurring tendency of old habit 
will, until wholly overcome by the Spirit, persist in 
rising up to harass and re-enslave the soul, as these 
seasons of devout meditation and prayer. Instant 
recourse to inward prayer at every recurring tempta- 
tion, when this habit of prayer is established, will 
immediately break its power and lift the soul above 
it, as it brings to us the swift help of a divine co- 
operative ministry, which is seeking us infinitely 
more than we are seeking it, and which we open our- 
selves to by prayer to the Father for His saving help. 

Thus turning our thought and attention from the 
things of self and sense to the Father and the nobler 
'' things of the Spirit of God " which await and in- 
vite our attention, accompanied with prayer for 
divine help, will so arouse, strengthen, and intensify 
our desire for them, that the enticement of sense and 



46 SONS OF GOD AND 

the things of the selfish Hfe will speedily lose their 
hold upon us, and the mind of the Spirit become en- 
throned in its supremacy and rightful dominance 
over the fleshly and sensuous life. It will then be 
found comparatively easy to assume and hold the 
true attitude in the prayer of silence, w hich opens us 
to the complete revelation of God and the spiritual 
illumination this confers. 



THE FINAL AND DECISIVE VICTORY. 

With this illumination thus obtained comes the 
full powder of the Spirit in which to meet and over- 
come the one supreme temptation in which the 
spirit of self rises up to appropriate the glory and 
power of the illuminated life to the ends of personal 
ambition and glorification. The victory won here is 
final and decisive, and won forever, as the real Christ 
life of eternal achievement and victory is then be- 
gun. This once reached, we have in the prayer of 
silence the key and open door to all divine revela- 
tion, realization, and achievement — to all the limit- 
less resources of the Being and kingdom of our 
Father in heaven. 

In starting out for this wonderful life of a true and 
loyal Son of God and Brother of Christ, in eternal 
union and fellowship with the Father, all should re- 
member that this, and nothing less than this, is the 



« 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 47 

life the Father has designed and provided for aU His 
children through their co-operation with Him to 
this end. 

By this privilege of co-operation with the Father, 
through the freedom of choice and volition He has 
given us, w^e are allowed to participate in the glory 
and blessedness of the achievement, and share in 
the outworking of our own sublime and exalted 
destiny as Sons of God and Brothers of Christ. To 
this end the Infinite Father has pledged the entire 
economy of His creation, and the direct inspiration, 
illumination, and all-suf^cient help of His Holy 
Spirit, with which the active ministry of the Christ 
and all the Mighty host of the risen and glorified 
who are one with Him in this divine and heavenly 
ministry of heaven, are now identified. 

ANGELIC MINISTRY A DIVINE PROVISION AND 
NECESSITY. 

We read that when the Master, who was our 
earthly example in all things, was in His final strug- 
gle with His supreme temptation in the wilderness, 
and again in the awful test of His spiritual strength 
and faith in the Father, at Gethsemane, '' angels 
ministered unto him and strengthened him." And 
again, wdien about to voluntarily surrender himself 
into the hands of the Roman soldiery, He said to one 



48 SONS OF GOD AND 

of His dazed and bewildered disciples: " Thinkest 
thou that I could not now pray to my Father, and he 
shall presently give me more than twelve legions of 
angels ?" (Matt. 26 : 53), (Luke 22 143), (Matt. 

4 : II-) 

If the Master, who was our great Exemplar in all 
things, needed and received the direct help of a 
special heavenly ministry sent of God (and now led 
by Him), we need not hesitate to recognize and wel- 
come it, if, with Him, we pray the Father that we 
receive only that which is sent of Him. 

We should remember that the invisible soul- 
w^orld, the realm of the departed, is a real world, and 
as vitally related to the material \vorld in which we 
live, as is the soul to the body. It is a spiritual 
planet, interior to and transcending this outer planet, 
as truly as the himian soul is interior to and tran- 
scends its physical embodiment. 

That inner w^orld or transcendent and indestruct- 
ible spiritual planet is the permanent home of our 
arisen humanity; where all who have ever lived on 
earth are living still. The same is true of all inhab- 
ited physical planets; each has its own spiritual 
planet to which its individualized spirits rise on 
passing from the physical. In our own spiritual 
planet, which we are now considering, will be found 
all degrees of intellectual and moral advancement, 
from the darkness of the lower spheres up to the 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 



49 



unspeakable glory and brightness of the celestial 
heaven. 

While in that higher world there is no such 
arbitrary division as men have pictured of heaven 
and hell, nor any permanently fixed and unalterable 
conditions or states of being, there are, nevertheless, 
there as here, two general spheres which constitute 
two distinct orders of life and experience. 

FINAL REDEMPTION OF THE RACE ASSURED BY ITS 
SOLIDARITY. 

The race-life is unquestionably a solidarity, and 
thus an indestructible organic unity. Herein lies 
the capacity of one to suffer from the wTong of an- 
other, or to be healed from the virtue of another, 
fn this law also lies the certainty of tiie ultimate and 
final redemption and perfection of the entire race, 
since if " one member sufTer all the members suf- 
fer with it, and if one member be honored all the 
members rejoice in it." 

Thus, if one or more of the human race should 
come to the full-orbed perfection of their individual 
lives, they would become a divine and all-mastering 
centre of radiating and attracting influence to lift and 
draw all men up to their level and fellowship, since 
they cannot be overcome and drawn down, but must 
attract and lift to themselves. In this consciousness 
4 



50 SONS OF GOD AND 

the Christ could truly say, '' And I, if I be lifted up 
from the earth, will draw all men unto me." 



I 



TWO DISTINCT ORDERS OF LIFE. 



The higher and regenerate order of the perfect 
human life having begun in the Christ, will extend 
until the whole race shall share in its fellowship 
Until this divine fruition is reached, there will be the 
two orders existing in both worlds, on earth and 
in the spheres; one under the dominion of the spirit 
of self, living the circumscribed life of the personal 
ego, the other emancipated from the spirit of self, 
living in universal love the life of actualized brother- 
hood, the true life of the divine and impersonal ego. 

Under this law in the upper world there is the one 
supreme order and sphere of the regenerate and 
perfected humanity, '' the spirits of just men made 
perfect," an innumerable company of angelic beings, 
very gods in the majesty of their wisdom, goodness, 
and power. At the head and centre of this mighty 
brotherhood of Spirit is He who glorified and made 
perfect our common humanity in His own embodi- 
ment on earth, and having conquered death and hell, 
became the Leader of the Hosts of Heaven, and the 
great Captain of our Salvation. 

All these, in unity with the Christ, having come 
into conscious oneness of life and will with the 



;ct ■ 
[id II 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 51 

Father, constitute the society of heaven and are 
permanently identified with the ministry of the Holy 
Spirit in unity with the Father, working for the final 
redemption and complete regeneration of the race, 
whether on earth or in the spheres beyond. 

The other order constitutes a vast sphere, em- 
bracing all those who have not yet been awakened 
to the necessity or desire for regeneration, and those 
who have started on the path and are in various 
stages of the process of regeneration and spiritual 
enlightenment, not having yet reached the complete 
emancipation and perfection of the full-orbed per- 
sonal life. 



MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP AND INFLUENCE OF THE 
TWO WORLDS. 

The vital and inseparable relation of that world 
with this, holds all who are in the flesh in conjunc- 
tion with and more or less subject to the influence 
of those out of the flesh, while the dominant desires 
and mental states of those in the body determine, 
to a great degree, the character of the influences 
they attract and open themselves to from the soul 
side of life. This is true whether or not either class 
are conscious of this relationship and influence. It 
is practically the same between those in and out of 
the flesh, as between those in the flesh. 



52 SONS OF GOD AND 

Multitudes of people are entirely unconscious of 
the silent influence they necessarily exert upon and 
receive from those with whom they have any degree 
of association. 

All who attain complete regeneration in the earth 
life are thereby brought into inseparable union and 
conscious fellowship with the life of the celestial 
heaven or Christ-sphere. As with the Christ and 
His Apostles, the heavens are opened unto them and 
the Spirit descends and abides upon them, by which 
they are enabled to live the true Christ and apostolic . 
life of divine illumination, mastery, and redemptive 
service. 

Likewise, all who commit themselves fully to the 
seeking of the regenerate and perfect life of union 
with God and the life of the heavens, which is the 
Christ-life of absolute brotherhood and service, 
open themselves to the full power of the Christ- 
ministry, by which their spiritual emancipation and 
illumination are made speedy and certain. 

When this is effected, they are held by the 
supremacy of the perfect life above the disturbing 
power of any antagonizing agency or influence, 
physical or psychic, while they are enabled to enter 
into communication with and exert an influence for 
good upon any order of life in both the physical and 
soul worlds. '' In my name shall they cast out 
devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 



53 



take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, 
it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the 
sick, and they shall recover." 

MARVELLOUS EXTENSION OF SOUL POWERS. 

This opening of the higher spiritual conscious- 
ness while in the flesh, liberates the soul powers of 
perception and conscious activity on the psychic 
plane, and makes man at once a conscious inhabi- 
tant of both worlds. It especially enables him to 
come into direct communication with the inner side 
or soul of things, read the secrets of nature, and 
touch, and in a degree control and wield, her hidden 
occult forces at first hand. 

It has been demonstrated that while in this world 
and using the physical body and its senses for ex- 
ternal communication and fellowship, we can so 
develop and use the higher soul powers as to hold 
as perfect soul communion with one another inde- 
pendent of the physical senses, as we do and must 
after leaving the body. 

Did you ever think how the departed hold com- 
munion with one another in the life after death? 
Unless they do hold such communion, and this at 
least as perfectly as here, through the senses, what 
would that life be worth? And if they do, by what 
means is it done? Surely they have no soul powers 



54 



SONS OF GOD AND 



or functions added by death, for if they had it would 
change their nature and they would become another 
order of beings. Death or separation from the 
physical body can, at the most, only set free the in- 
herent powers of the soul hitherto held to the limi- 
tation of sense perception and expression. 

The physical body, it should be remembered, is 
but an organic instrument and fleshly covering of a 
corresponding, inner, ethereal, and indestructible 
organism, in which the soul as an individualized 
spiritual being, and self-conscious identity, is per- 
manently embodied for a career of endless develop- 
ment and progress. To this inner and permanent 
organism the outer body holds relation similar to 
that which the husk holds to the '' full corn in the 
ear," and, like the husk, is dropped when no lojiger 
needed. 



PERCEPTION AND EXPRESSION STRICTLY SOUL 
POWERS. 

The physical organs of sense perception and ex- 
pression are but the external clothing of correspond- 
ing permanent soul organs. Hence these powers of 
perception and expression, having their real seat 
in the inner soul body, act at once on the soul plane, 
when the separation takes place between the outer 
physical and inner spiritual body. For as St. Paul 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 55 

says, '' There is a natural body and there is a spiritual 
body." 

In the inner soul world we see, hear, touch, con- 
verse, love, and have companionship with one an- 
other by means of this inner, permanent and inde- 
structible, ethereal body and its organic senses of 
perception and expression, even more completel}'' 
and satisfactorily than now through the physical 
senses ; because there is no material veil to hide the 
light and true state of the soul. Death, so-called, 
does not create the soul organs of perception and 
expression any more than it creates the world into 
which the soul enters, or rather to which it is 
awakened, by its separation from the body. When 
thus deprived of the physical senses, and it can no 
longer give attention to the things of sense, it must 
perforce turn to the things and conditions of the soul 
world. This it can just as certainly do now, while in 
the body, by a corresponding diversion of attention 
from the sense to the soul plane, as has been demon- 
strated in the experience of thousands of seers. 

Were not the conscious powers of perception and 
expression strictly soul powers, behind and tran- 
scending the physical organs, and so existing inde- 
pendent of them, the physical organs themselves 
would be of no avail, as shown in sudden death by a 
violent separation of soul and body. The physical 
organs of sense, in such cases, are for a little season 



56 SONS OF GOD AND 

perfect, but deprived of the inner soul action, do not 
and cannot respond to any impression from the sense 
world. These, therefore, being interior and inhe- 
rent soul powers, remain perfect for action and ser- 
vice in and through the permanent soul body after 
its separation from the physical. 



LIVING SOULS WITH BODIES, NOT BODIES WITH SOULS. 

The fact tliat we are not physical bodies holding 
some indefinite thing called a soul, but are ourselves 
living souls, indestructible spiritual beings, with a 
transient physical body for service in a brief earthly 
experience, makes necessary also the fact that we 
are as really and vitally in the soul world while wear- 
ing the physical body, as after we have discarded it. 

If, then, we fully recognized and realized as we 
should, that though clothed upon with a physical 
organism, we are now spiritual beings, we should 
find that by the very same soul powers of perception 
and expression with which we hold communication 
on the external plane with each other and the out- 
ward world, through the senses, we could, and 
would, independent of these senses, have just as 
direct and specific communication with each other 
on the soul plane, and also with the inner side or soul 
of all things. 

By an extension of the same powers we should 



I 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 57 

also hold direct communication with our departed 
loved ones who are still as vitally connected with us 
by soul relationship, as before their separation from 
the body. And this is exactly what it is designed, 
and, in the constitution of our being, provided that 
we should do. We must do this when we leave the 
body, why not then learn and do it while in the body? 
To accomplish this we must simply learn to with- 
draw the attention and activity of the mind from the 
organs of sense and the things of the sense world, 
and concentrate them upon the soul plane and the 
things of the soul world. 

When we can wholly shut out the sense world from 
our thought and attention and disentangle our con- 
sciousness from sense impressions we shall find our- 
selves in as free and open communication with the 
beings, things, and activities of the inner world, and 
with each other on the soul plane above and inde- 
pendent of the senses, as we now are with the out- 
ward world and each other on the external plane 
through the senses. 

When we rise to live as spiritual instead of sen- 
suous beings, as Ave some time will, this will be the 
common and universal experience. There will then 
practically be no separation of loved ones, either by 
physical absence on earth, or by the departure of our 
friends from the body, by what men call death. 
Space and physical conditions are nothing to the 



58 SONS OF GOD AND 

spirit, and to those living- on the plane of the spiritual 
consciousness the communion and fellowship of 
loved ones will remain unbroken forever. 

Does this seem incredible? To the sense man, 
yes, but to one whose mental vision has been opened 
to perceive the inherent deific attributes and possi- 
bilities of the human soul as a spiritual being, the 
direct offspring of God, this is seen to be the real 
and only thing to rightfully expect and work for. 
Life in this world will not be complete until this is 
realized. The gospel and religion of Jesus are de- 
signed to bring men to this, and when truly under- 
stood and applied will effect this result. 

A HELPFUL ILLUSTRATION. 

Take from a common experience, a simple illus- 
tration of this divine possibility. In a clear and 
cloudless day we look into the sky, and see nothing 
but an apparently empty vault of blue, but wait until 
the sun has disappeared below the western horizon 
and the curtain of night shrouds the earth in dark- 
ness. The things which but a few hours before we 
saw all around us are now hidden from view or but 
dimly perceived, while that blue vault above, so 
seemingly empty then, is now, to the same eyes, 
literally crowded with shining worlds, some of them 
of such magnitude and at such a distance as to baffle 
our powers of computation and measurement. 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 59 

What has made this transformation? Is it the de- 
struction of the things seen by day, and the sudden 
creation of the innumerable worlds revealed by 
night ? No, all were there in the daytime as at night. 
The night or darkness did not create the stars, nor 
the eyes with which we see them. The darkness 
simply shuts out the objects revealed by the day- 
light from our perception, and disentangles our 
minds from their impressions. Then the almost un- 
limited sweep of the night vision breaks upon the 
same perceptive power that in the daylight is held 
to the limited vision of a few objects within a nar- 
row circle of the earth's surface. 

The daylight and its vision typify the sense life 
and its limitations; while the night and its vision 
typify the inner life and the vast sweep and penetra- 
tion of the same perceptive powers on the soul plane, 
when the thought, desire, and attention are w^ith- 
drawn from the sense plane and turned in full con- 
centration upon the stupendous realities and splen- 
dors of the inner world. 

THE GRAND SECRET A SIMPLE LAW. 

The secret lies in the ability (which may be ac- 
(|uired by all), to disentangle the mind from the 
dominance of sense impressions, by withdrawing 
and diverting the attention and mental action wholly 
from the sense organs and the external of things. 



6o SONS OF GOD AND 

and centring them upon the higher and interior 
soul plane, and the objects of the soul world, or the 
soul side of things. This ability, however, as pre- 
viously shown, is perfectly acquired only by the 
awakening of the spiritual consciousness of being, 
referred to by Jesus as the new or second-birth. 

This new and spiritual birth, or birth of the new 
and higher spiritual consciousness, is effected, as 
previously shown, only by the awakening touch and 
quickening power of the Father's Spirit upon ours, 
in response to the supreme desire of our own hearts 
for it. The voluntary and conscious re-union of the 
soul with God as child with Parent, through prayer 
and divine communion, is what opens the personal 
life to the transforming and illuminating power of 
the Father's Spirit, and sets it free from the bondage 
of self and the limitations of sense. To lead men to 
this is the end and ann of the Gospel of Jesus, which 
was announced from heaven as '' Good tidings of 
great joy which shall be to all people.'' 

AN ETERNAL SPRINGTIDE. 

In the liberation of loyal souls by the birth-angel 
(misnamed death), they find themselves at once in 
the freedom, freshness, and buoyancy of perfect 
youth, in a world of beauty and delight, itself forever 
young in the morning glow of an eternal springtide, 
where they are welcomed w^ith glad hearts by the 



BROTHERS OF CHRIST. 6i 

many happy waiting ones gone before. Yes, there 
is joy in that heavenly Hfe at their entrance there, 
as there will be for all the w^eary earthworn pilgrims 
in their glad transition from earth to heaven, save 
to those who pass on from a life of sin and shame. 
Even for these there is still a blessed ministry of hope 
and redemption in that " morning land " of endless 
life and progress, mider the Good Shepherd and 
Bishop of Souls, who is '' the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever." 

But, beloved ! suppose our spiritual eyes and ears 
were open to all this now wdiile in the body, is it not 
clear that the sting or dread and gloom of death 
w^ould be gone, and that death would be no longer 
death but birth into a higher, grander, and vastly 
rrtore expanded life? Not only so, but w^e should 
now consciously share in the freedom and blessed- 
ness of that life, though in the body. The suprem- 
acy of the spiritually awakened soul-life would dom- 
inate the body and hold it ever fresh, young, and 
buoyant wath the perpetual springtide of the inner 
world, with which it is consciously one; while the 
kingdom of the inner world itself would thus dom- 
inate and glorify the outer, and the Lord's prayer 
be answered in the realization of the millennial glory 
of the kingdom of heaven on earth. '' Thy kingdom 
come and thy will be done on earth as it is in 
heaven." 



SCHOOL OF THE HIGHER LIFE. 

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The Christ method of interior development and 
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This inward attitude and act, and this only, opens 
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This consciousness breaks forever the circle of 
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To induct the student into the secret and mas- 
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lessons. 

For further particulars address, with stamp, the Secretary, 

E. L. C. Dewey. 
Ill West 68th Street, New York. 



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